Afternoons in Paris

by Janice Law

  “The refreshments are outstanding,” I said. “And it is nice to speak English.”

  “Here to learn the lingo?”

  “I started French at school, but it is not the same.”

  “Jolly well isn’t. Though I had a French master who was excellent. He was a bit heavy with the cane, but his accent was perfection.”

  He went on in this vein. I learned about school theatrics—a conversational opening I might have taken but didn’t dare—and about the amazing all-conquering rugby side of his last year, memories that made me wonder what it was about school that enchanted so many Englishmen. Ghastly food, bullying upper forms, brutal masters, ridiculous games, and cold showers: Had I escaped a taste for all that by being born in Ireland?

  I feigned an interest in cricket to escape more talk of rugby, which, aside from all those bare legs and strong rumps, holds no attraction whatsoever. We ventured instead into a discussion of off spinners and googlies.

  The man was a font of games knowledge, and sooner or later, I was going to flounder in athletic waters. But was this our man? Had he retained a passion for smaller boys along with their sports? I hoped that he was just a nice chap assigned to keep guests happy, because I wasn’t picking up any signals at all, and I was relieved when he waved to someone across the lawn, wished me a happy time in Paris, and moved away through the crowd.

  Guests were beginning to drift back into the embassy for the music. Uncle Lastings caught my eye as I crossed the main reception room to a salon decorated like a French king’s bedroom and set up with rows of gilt chairs. I gave a little shake of my head. Maybe I was wrong, but I had detected only innocent, indeed, dutiful interest so far.

  I took an aisle seat toward the back, intending a quick return to the champagne table. Up front, our soloist was introduced along with her pianist, a chubby fellow with a bald head and the face of an aging cupid. We were to have songs by Vaughan Williams, Delius, and Elgar, not the most enticing prospect for someone with a tin ear. I leaned back in my chair, prepared to be bored.

  A tinkling introduction from the piano, before the singer, her hands held out to implore the Muse, her breath swelling her squarish chest, began Elgar’s “Sea Slumber Song.” She was barely through the first verse when I began to feel acutely uncomfortable. Music? Hard chair, too many sweets? The general unreality of visiting an embassy function to flush out a security risk? No, I decided, that was not it: I was being watched. And who could that be but someone who recognized me from the cafés? Possibly someone who knew me all too well.

  That could be embarrassing. Worse, it could put my next installment of twenty-five pounds and a life in London in jeopardy. As casually as I could, I looked around. In the second row from the rear sat a distinguished-looking gent. Silver hair, silver mustache, silvery suit, possibly silver eyes for all I knew. Whatever he was, he looked solid sterling and top drawer, and he was focused not on the singer but on yours truly. I looked away, thankful I did not recognize him from Le Select, the Dôme, or the Parnasse Bar.

  Applause, which I dutifully joined. Introductory chords from the piano and the soloist launched into another song. I was interested in the way her mouth moved, the ripple of muscle, the strong movements of her lips. Had anyone painted that? I wondered. And was I still under observation? I felt so. Like the handsome embassy official, I’d had some peculiar schoolmasters, one of whom had speculated that as a former prey animal, humans could sense even covert surveillance.

  Another glance under cover of schoolboy restlessness. The distinguished gent was consulting the program. You’re not the only pebble on the beach, Nan whispered in my ear, and I was about to assume I’d been mistaken when he raised his head and met my glance. I looked up at the ceiling as if suddenly interested in the stucco cornice decorations. Two songs later, I’d had enough. I slipped out of my seat and left the salon. I went to the French doors in the reception room but saw that the champagne table was already being cleared out on the lawn.

  “Can I help you?” an official voice asked. It was a chilly voice, weighted with the arrogance of authority, and I wasn’t surprised that it belonged to the man who’d been watching me. Seen close up, he had angry eyes set in a gleaming silvery perfection, marred only by the terrible shrapnel scar down the left side of his face.

  “I was looking for the WC,” I said.

  “It’s not out in the garden.”

  “I thought I might collect a champagne on the way.” I smiled; winsome schoolboy was my brief after all.

  He raised his head and frowned to show me what he thought of that idea; possibly he remembered no schoolboy pranks. “Entrance hallway. Gentlemen’s is to the left,” he said. “The rest of the embassy is out of bounds.”

  I thanked him, all on my best manners, but he stood and watched me as if I might be there to steal the silver or make off with the drapes. Or was something else behind his chilly anger? Did he intend to follow me and what was the best reaction then? I closed the WC door behind me and waited, but the marble floor outside remained silent, and when I returned to the performance salon, he was nowhere in sight.

  Chapter Twelve

  I rode the Metro back from the embassy party. I assumed Uncle Lastings took a taxi, because he opened the door for me. He’d already lost his formal jacket and tie, rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt, and opened a bottle of red wine. When I produced my reserve biscuits, he pronounced them just the thing.

  “So,” he said, “you got away with being a dewy-eyed schoolboy. I knew you could, my boy. You looked no more than fifteen.” He patted me on the rump and added, “And a delectable fifteen at that. Formal dress suits you.”

  He was getting enthusiastic in a way I recognized from Berlin, and I was surprised to realize that I’d probably encourage him. Life with Uncle Lastings was complicated, but sex with him was not, whereas with Armand and Philip, life had been simple but sex was a business. Maybe I’d just needed a little perspective to see my treacherous uncle’s virtues. Maybe. For the moment, I shrugged and stepped away. “No one much noticed me, if that’s what you mean, except—”

  “Nonsense,” he said, still in a merry mood. “I saw you flirting with Willington.”

  “The handsome blond chap? He bored me with an account of his schooldays.”

  “I imagine he was a prefect and a star at everything. Plus you attracted Old Porter. Do you know, I think he served in the Zulu War.”

  “I can believe it, but he was slavering all over Miss Poole, the singer.”

  My uncle sighed. “Ah, Francis, you lack an appreciation for the female form. Miss Poole has a fine set of pipes and a beautiful case to keep them in.” He threw back his head and laughed, so that even though I knew my uncle’s catholic sexual tastes, I wondered if he was a bit drunk.

  “In fact, there was only one person who made me uneasy.”

  I was wrong: Uncle Lastings was sober and instantly on the alert.

  “I don’t know his name, we didn’t really talk, but he was staring at me during the recital.” I described the man and relayed our brief conversation. “It doesn’t sound like much,” I admitted. Sitting with wine and biscuits in my uncle’s comfortable flat, I thought I probably was acting like a nervous schoolboy until I saw my uncle’s expression, all jollity gone. He made me recount every detail again and shook his head when I was finished.

  “We could be down the rabbit hole.” This is my uncle’s shorthand for total disaster.

  “I could be wrong. It’s just I felt uneasy at his interest. And he was interested.”

  My uncle nodded rapidly. “I believe you, my boy. But why Stephen Byrone is interested, that’s the crucial question. The possibilities . . .” Here he held up two fingers. “One, he’s our man. That would be both awkward and dangerous. Two, he’s not our man, but he’s not been made privy to our scheme and now that he’s found out about it, he’s furious. That would be awkward
and embarrassing.”

  “But why? What is he?”

  “Stephen Byrone is the local head of the SIS.”

  I’ve always found multiple initials mean trouble.

  “Secret Intelligence Service,” Uncle Lastings explained. “The embassy provides diplomatic cover for a variety of intelligence officers.”

  “He didn’t know that one of his people might be a target for blackmail?” Considering the fuss made about queers back home, that didn’t sound terribly likely.

  “Blackmail and corruption are always possible, and agents, even good ones, can become unreliable. There are certain pressures in the job.” My uncle looked thoughtful. I knew he’d been with the Royal Berkshires, but now I wondered for how long and where he’d been posted afterward.

  “We still need to find Pavel if he’s alive. I promised Jules and Inessa.”

  “It’s a mistake to make promises,” my uncle said heavily. “Especially about events that are beyond your control.”

  “Are we going to run away, then?” I was angry. “Are you going to leave Paris and everyone and become someone else?”

  My uncle put his hand on my thigh and winked. “No, I intend to share some of my schoolboy reminiscences with you and clear my brain.”

  I hesitated just long enough to put him into doubt before I said, “Inspiration’s where you find it.”

  “Indeed it is, my boy. And what I learned after hours at school has kept me entertained ever since.” He laughed and put his arm around me affectionately, grabbed the wine bottle, and set a course for his bedroom, singing “A bit of what you fancy does you good,” complete with high kicks, my uncle being a devotee of music halls of all sorts.

  His school experiences were more entertaining than mine, even though mine got me expelled, and it was some time before we surfaced from the mess of rumpled sheets and pillows. Uncle Lastings shared out the last of the wine and fiddled with, but kindly did not light, one of his favored cigars.

  “We do nothing for a few days,” he said, his mind made up. “We may already have flushed him out; we must wait and see. I will find out if Byrone has discovered our plan. That will determine everything. In the meantime, you stay out of sight. It would be dangerous if anyone at the embassy but Horace made the connection between us.”

  I started to protest. I’d had enough seclusion.

  “Just until the garden party at the embassy on Thursday. We will maybe make another sally then.”

  At least, I thought, we weren’t going over the top, always his indication that things were taking a turn for the worst. In fact, my uncle seemed to have lost his sense of urgency, which gave me another idea. “I’m supposedly a schoolboy on a language course. Is it plausible that I’d be working every minute? Or would I be out taking in the sights, visiting the cafés? Everyone knows the Parnasse Bar is a favorite with expats. And Jimmy, the head barman, he’d keep an eye on me, if you asked him, wouldn’t he? If there was any sign of trouble?”

  Now my uncle lit his cigar, a sign of deep thought, and it struck me, almost unwillingly, that somewhere in his devious mind he might be concerned for my safety. People are endlessly surprising, but I thought that was still too big an assumption to be relied on.

  “You’re known there,” he said.

  “Embassy staff do visit the Parnasse though?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because it could be one of the others or someone I didn’t meet at all.”

  “Quite right. But you’d have to be on your best behavior,” he said. “If our man were to get something going with you, he might give Anoshkin’s trap a miss. Remember that.”

  Though I doubted that I could hold a candle to Pavel’s attractions, I promised anyway.

  “An attack on two fronts?” My uncle considered this proposition and nodded. “But you wait a night or two. Let’s see what we’ve stirred up first.”

  The next day, my uncle took me for a run to Dieppe in the van. I thought this was part of some plan, a rendezvous with Jules and Inessa, perhaps. I should have known better. He wanted to be sure that the paintings were properly loaded to be shipped across the Channel.

  “We could have been looking for Pavel,” I said on the way home. I was feeling anxious and guilty about the delay.

  “All in good time,” said my uncle. “I wanted to be out of Paris in case there were fireworks today at the embassy. It’s always good to let the smoke clear.”

  That made sense, but back in the city, I asked him to drop me near Monsieur Chaput’s detective agency. “He might have learned something.”

  My uncle was surprised—and seemed not best pleased—to learn I’d hired a detective.

  “Well, technically not me. Jules paid for most of the work.”

  “I suppose there will be a bill,” my uncle said drily.

  “I suppose there will. Monsieur Chaput believes all the answers are in the documents.”

  “He’ll be nothing but a damn paper pusher,” said my uncle, but to my surprise, he parked the van a couple of blocks from the agency and walked over with me.

  “Who are you?” I asked as we climbed the breath-catching stairs.

  “I am your uncle. No, no, that won’t do. I am your tutor. In loco parentis at the moment.”

  I rolled my eyes and knocked on the door.

  We found Monsieur Chaput annoyed because there had been no word from Monsieur Dumoulin. “I understood that time was of the essence, that my client felt a real urgency,” he said as he ushered us into his office.

  “There was serious illness in his family,” I said quickly. “He had to go north on short notice. My tutor, Monsieur Larouche, insisted we come to settle up with you.”

  Chaput sat down in his raised chair and relaxed a little. “The fee, of course,” he said and slid a piece of paper across the desk. “But that is not the crucial thing. If the documents do not lie—and the French border control is very efficient—Bogdan Anoshkin recently entered Paris and secured a carte d’identité from the Paris Préfecture. He gave this address.” Another piece of paper, which my uncle collected with considerably more eagerness than the bill.

  “This does not necessarily mean he has rejoined the boy,” Uncle Lastings said.

  “Alas, no. And it does not give us reason to engage the police—yet. However, discreet inquiries might be made.”

  “Certainly,” I said, but my uncle held up his hand.

  “Not yet.” He gave me a warning look. “I think a more oblique approach is needed. I would like to know who visits the residence, and I would like photographs of them. Can you arrange that?”

  “Of course, monsieur, though it will be much more expensive than my work with the documents. Are we talking about an all-day surveillance? Or a twenty-four-hour watch?”

  “Let us start with evenings, six to eleven, say, and go from there.”

  Monsieur Chaput thought for a moment and named a figure. My uncle must have been on expenses because he did not blanch. He pulled out his wallet, settled up our bill, and added a substantial retainer. “You can reach me anytime with a message to Jimmy at the Parnasse Bar.” He added the number. “I will return any call as soon as possible. Usually within a half hour.”

  “D’accord, monsieur. That is very satisfactory.” Monsieur Chaput made as if to stand up, then paused and settled himself again. “The residence is a most interesting one, over three hundred years old. It is one of the oldest private dwellings in the city.”

  My uncle looked nonplussed at this, and I was surprised myself. Was our target fond of antiques? Or had this rental nothing to do with a honeypot scheme? “An unusual choice,” my uncle observed.

  “Maybe,” said Chaput, “maybe not.” He smiled like a magician about to produce the rabbit. “There are all sorts of stories about the house. One owner is supposed to have been involved in the assassination of Henry IV. An
other is supposed to have been one of the frondeurs who opposed his son.”

  I thought that a Red commissar might feel right at home there and perhaps my uncle did, too, because he only shrugged.

  Monsieur Chaput continued. “Alternately, the house is said to have belonged to one of the king’s mistresses and to be connected to the Louvre via a tunnel. Of course”—he raised his hands to signal skepticism—“no one has ever found this tunnel.”

  “But the house is on the Left Bank?” my uncle asked in surprise.

  “Correct. And doubtless that is why the tunnel has remained legendary. It would have to run beneath the Seine to reach the palace. Still, even a partial tunnel might be an asset—in certain businesses.”

  We could only agree that this was food for thought.

  On our way back downstairs, I expressed my surprise that Uncle Lastings had hired the detective.

  “I am known to all concerned at the embassy, so I could not stake out the building. The whole embassy staff must be under suspicion, so they cannot be asked, and Horace himself is too highly placed to be lurking around the rue Jacob. We need an outsider, preferably an obscure one, and Monsieur Chaput certainly fits the bill. Though,” he added, “it will not hurt for us to have a look at this interesting property.”

  We drove by. The rue Jacob house was visible only as a series of steep slated gables behind the trees and high stone wall that surrounded what looked to be a large garden. Access was via the doors of a handsome iron gate with a fancy heraldic emblem, and a trip around the block revealed that the property extended to the next street.

  “Very private,” said my uncle thoughtfully. “And a quiet neighborhood.”

  “They’d notice cars, though.”

  “This is not a volume business,” said my uncle. “This is a few discreet visitors.”

  “Making a difficult assignment for Monsieur Chaput?”

  “He’s charging enough. We’ll see how ingenious he is.”

  We waited for the next several days. I received a delighted letter from Nan, who reported that she had chucked her situation and was already in London, sharing a bedsit with a friend and looking seriously at flats in Chelsea. I sent her a postcard of the Bois de Boulogne and a letter describing the Thursday garden party at the embassy, a dull affair of linen suits, flowered hats, and genial bores made tolerable only by the excellent champagne. His Majesty’s government clearly runs on the stuff. I ate a great many finger sandwiches and cakes and managed to drift away before the musical entertainment, a trio of clarinet, piano, and cello. No one propositioned me, no one regaled me with his school days, and except for a heavy-legged old dame who needed my arm to take a gander at the embassy roses, no one paid me the slightest attention.